Saving Faith By: David Baldacci

made the survivors stronger, their descendants stronger still. And

Danny Buchanan was perhaps the strongest of them all.

Young Danny Buchanan had watered the lawn and cleaned the pool, swept

and repainted the tennis court, picked the flowers and vegetables and

played, in a properly respectful manner, with the children. As he had

gotten older, Buchanan had huddled with the younger generation of the

spoiled rich, deep in the privacy of the complex flower gardens,

smoking, drinking and exploring each other sexually. Buchanan had even

acted as pallbearer, weeping sincerely as he bore two of the young and

the rich who had wasted their privileged lives, mixing too much whiskey

with a racing sports car, driving too fast for impaired motor skills.

When you lived life that fast, often you died fast as well. Right now

Buchanan could see his own end rushing headlong at him.

Buchanan had never felt comfortable in either group-the rich or the

poor-since then. The rich he would never be a part of, no matter how

much his bank account swelled. He had played with the wealthy heirs,

but when mealtime came, they went to the formal dining room while he

trudged to the kitchen to break his bread with the other servants. The

baby blues had attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton; he had worked his

way through night school at an institution his betters would openly

mock.

Buchanan’s own family was now equally foreign to him. He sent his

relatives money. They sent it back. When he went to visit, he had

found they had nothing to talk about. They neither understood nor

cared about what he did. However, they made him feel that there was

nothing honest about his life’s occupation; he could see that in their

tightly drawn faces, their mumbled words. Washington was as foreign as

hell itself to all that they believed in. He lied for money, large

sums of it. Better he had followed in their tread: honest if simple

work. By rising above them, he had fallen far below what they

represented: fairness, integrity, character.

The path he had chosen during the last ten years had only deepened this

solitary confinement. He had few friends. Nevertheless, he did have

millions of strangers across the world who deeply depended on him for

something as basic as survival. Even Buchanan had to admit, it was a

bizarre existence.

And now, with the coming of Thornhill, Buchanan’s foothold had dropped

another rung on the ladder leading to the abyss. Now he could no

longer even confide in his one indisputable soul mate, Faith Lockhart.

She knew nothing about Thornhill, and she never would know of the man

from the CIA; this was all that was keeping her safe. It had cost him

his last thread of real human contact.

Danny Buchanan was now truly alone.

He stepped to the window of his office and looked out at majestic

monuments known around the world. Some might argue that their

beautiful facades were just that: Like the magician’s hand, they were

designed to guide the eyes away from the truly important business of

this city, transacted usually for the benefit of a select few.

Buchanan had learned that effective, long-term power came essentially

from the gentle force of rule of the few over the many, for most people

were not political beasts. A delicate balance was called for, the few

over the many, gently, civilly; and Buchanan knew that the most perfect

example of it in the history of the world existed right here.

Closing his eyes, he let the darkness envelop him, let new energy spill

into his body for the fight tomorrow. It promised to be a very long

night, however, for in truth, his life had now become one long tunnel

to nowhere. If he could only ensure Thornhill’s destruction as well,

it would all be worth it. One small crack in the darkness, that would

be all Buchanan needed. If only it could be so.

CHAPTER 4

THE CAR MOVED DOWN THE HIGHWAY at precisely the speed limit. The man

was driving, the woman next to him. Both sat rigidly, as though one

feared a sudden attack from the other.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *